


Day Release

by D_f_m22



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 11:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11334594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_f_m22/pseuds/D_f_m22
Summary: Set after Empress of Mars, Missy isn't as happy with the prospect of freedom as she initially thought. The Doctor helps.





	Day Release

“I’m going to have to put you back in the Vault. You know that.”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

It was too easy and the Doctor knew it. Looking back over his shoulder at Nardole and Bill he nodded and silently directed them to enter the Tardis. Both looked warily between the two Time Lords and shuffled inside, standing pointedly as far away from Missy as possible. 

“Did you let her out?” Bill whispered, eyes wide as she looked at Nardole. She may have only met the other last of Time Lords once, but she knew she was not a being to be crossed. Or trusted. Missy scared her more than anything in the Universe. “I had to” Nardole replied with a squeak. “There was no other way that the Tardis would fly back. Would you rather I had just left you here?” Bill puffed her cheeks out and shook her head, eyes wondering over to Missy who remained stood in front of the Doctor. “Will he actually get her back in the Vault?” She whispered, watching as the Time Lady reached her hand up to the Doctor’s chest and rested it there. Nardole shrugged. 

The Doctor pushed Missy away gently and set about flying them back to the university. “Stay over there. Don’t touch anything.” It was a firm warning but his voice was soft and made the Time Lady walk to the far edge of the console room and stand quietly, playing with the hem of the jacket. There was something he was missing and he could sense Missy was uncomfortable and on edge. As the Tardis whirred to life he was torn between protecting Nardole and Bill while making sure Missy was okay and aiming to get her back to the Vault as quickly as possible. 

“Are you alright though, Doctor?” Missy asked again, standing awkwardly in her assigned corner and shuffling from foot to foot as though the floor was made of hot coal. The Doctor sighed as he tried to ignore her. “Doctor, really, please tell me are you alright?” The Time Lady was growing more agitated by the second, unkept hair frizzed out in every direction and her eyes were alight with a new kind of madness. This was at least the twentieth time she had asked him the same question and he could see her using it as a defence. It was like a security habit, protecting her now she was out of the Vault. The Doctor nodded, gulping and unable to quite meet his friend’s eyes. There was nothing wrong with him, other than a warranted wariness with Missy being out of the Vault. 

“I’ve told you, Missy, I’m fine” he replied, clicking some buttons and sending the Tardis into autopilot before walking back towards Missy. “Look at me,” he grinned reassuringly as he held his arms wide “everything is fine. It’s perfect, now stop asking me.” It was a reassurance and a warning to stop with her repetitions before they turned into a compulsion; she always risked falling into compulsive behaviour and he wanted to stop it before it could develop into an issue. “You’re fine?” “I’ve said I’m fine, now drop it.” The Time Lady looked at him, eyes shifting over the Doctor nervously. “Fine, fine, fine” she sang as the corners of her lips turned upwards, forming an unhinged grin. 

Calm down, Missy the Doctor projected straight into her consciousness. It swept over her thoughts like a warm blanket and instantly had a calming effect. Her mental relaxation was reflected in her body language as her tensed form slumped against the wall. The Doctor was the only one that could ever have that effect on her. Good. Well Done. We’ll spend some time together tonight, okay? It was a little offer of a reward. After all, as far as he could tell, she hadn’t done anything wrong. 

Missy’s eyes shot up, picking up on his thought. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Nardole and Bill looked over and the Cyborg found himself stepping forward to the Time Lady’s defence. “She really didn’t do anything wrong” he said slowly, voice full of surprise. “She actually helped.” The Doctor nodded as the Tardis materialised.

“I’m going to drop you off home, Bill.” 

“No tutorial?” Bill questioned, “I finished my essay on free will.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Very good, I’ll read it tomorrow” he said bluntly, still focused on Missy. The Time Lady was still as a statue but he could tell she was watching the whole situation.

“Okay. A night off I guess,” she laughed, starting to walk towards the door. Nardole grinned and nodded at her. 

“Well, don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

Bill hovered at the doors, a wide grin plastered on her face as the Doctor tried so hard to be cool. 

“You’re such a dork.” 

“I’ve been telling him that for centuries,” Missy murmured from her spot in the corner. Bill’s grin faltered and her body tensed.

Missy’s words were forced as she tried to join in with the casual teasing. She fell short, voice seeming cold and uncaring. The Doctor cringed for his friend. He knew what it was like when, despite their best efforts, they still didn’t fit in. The Time Lady muttered something under her breath and looked at her feet. She used to be able to wind everyone around her up with her words, now she looked like a fool. Too long in isolation had made her even more of an outcast. 

“Right,” Bill coughed and slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You too, Nardole.” She paused and looked over at Missy. “I guess I’ll see you soon, Missy and…er… thanks for getting us home. That was a good thing to do.” 

Missy’s eyes shot up and she looked between the Doctor and Bill. The former nodded in encouragement, hoping she’d respond in the right way.

“Not a problem, dear” she sang as she examined her cuticles. “Couldn’t have left egg man to do it.”

“Hey!” Nardole gasped, “I’ve told you I don’t like being called an egg.”

“I think what Missy means is you’re welcome,” the Doctor said as he ignored the other two bickering. 

“Yes, yes that too” Missy agreed. The Doctor smiled and shook his head at her. 

“Oh, look at that,” Nardole commented. “It’s like when your naughty child starts to say please and thank you.”

“Okay, right I’m off before this gets any weirder” Bill laughed, heading out the door. 

Nardole raised his hand to wave at her before the Doctor cut in. “You too, Nardole. Off you go. Have a night off.”

The cyborg went to protest but Bill came in and pulled him by the hand out into the evening. “Come on, take the hint, we aren’t wanted here tonight.”

 

*************************************************

 

Later that evening, Missy’s sat on her bed and leaning down to undo her boots when the Doctor speaks up. 

“You did well today,” he muses out loud. “When I saw you there in the console room, I couldn’t breathe.” 

Missy looked up at him, kicking her boots off and placing them on her shoe rack carefully, ensuring they lined up perfectly with her other footwear. 

“Did you think I’d hurt her?” 

 

“No…Well, okay, at first yes” he conceded. “Then I realised you’d done everything right and you’d come back for not just me, but me and my friend. You didn’t hurt anyone. The sight of you on board the Tardis, meaning no harm whatsoever, was the most breath-taking thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

Missy scoffed. “I thought you said I was the dramatic one?” 

 

“It reminded me of our pact”

 

“Our pact?”

 

“Yes. You know what I mean so don’t pretend you don’t.”

 

Missy smirked, eyes lighting up slightly. “We were just boys back then. We knew nothing of the Universe.” 

 

“Maybe but we’re not boys any more—“

“Rather literally for one of us” Missy grinned. The Doctor held his hand to his lip, sushing her before continuing. 

“We’re not children anymore. We’ve seen things and lived things. I think soon, we might be able to honour that pact.”

 

Missy’s smile fell and her eyes darkened. Catching sight of her reaction, the Doctor gulped.

 

“I..er…guess you don’t want that anymore then?” He stuttered, feeling his cheeks redden at Missy’s apparent rejection. “You’ll just be wanting to fly off when you’ve served your time.”

 

“Oh, Thete, no” Missy said softly. “It’s not that. It’s just…I was…being out of the Vault…it was the first time I’ve been outside in nearly a century and I was…I don’t know…I just felt…”

The Doctor’s face softened in realisation as he thought back to her earlier nervousness. “You were scared.”

 

Missy nodded as he admitted what she couldn’t. “The Universe felt very big.”

 

Walking over to her, the Doctor waited for permission to sit down next to her on her bed. “It is a big Universe, Koschei. You’ve seen and you’ve caused a lot of the bad stuff in it but it’s not all like that.”

“I know. I felt like I couldn’t breathe when I stepped out of the Vault. I had to get to you though. As soon as you were okay, I had to come back here. It’s like my safe space.”

Missy chewed her lip before adding, “I’ve never had a safe space before. Thank you for that.”

The Doctor felt like the wind had been knocked out of him as she admitted that and he took a moment to recover. 

“Your safe space will always be with me. It always has been.” He paused and considered his next words carefully. “I don’t want to make you unwell though. Being in this Vault all of the time isn’t healthy in the long run.”

“Do make your mind up. Last I heard it was the best scenario for everyone involved.”

 

“When you were running around killing anything with a pulse, it was. Now, though, you’re getting better. I have a proposition for you.”

“Doctor, so forward,” Missy winked.

“Come and do some work for me on the Tardis a couple of hours a day. She needs an MOT.”

Missy’s face tightened. “No. I just told you it scared me out there.”

“You wouldn’t be out there. You’d be on the Tardis, doing a few jobs and then maybe spending some time in one of the gardens. Ease you back into life on the outside.”

 

“Like day release then?”

 

“Exactly. Day release and community service.”

 

“Would I get paid for my work. I hear the going rate for a mechanic is rather high now.”

 

The Doctor chuckled. “Don’t push it.”


End file.
